Locked
by NeithKe
Summary: Alec rediscovers a small part of his past in an unexpected place.
1. Stranger Beauty

"She Said Nothing" Disclaimer: I wish I owned Alec. *sigh* If I did, he`d never leave the house...he`d be too busy helping me "make up the bed." :D

A/N: A short, short snippet of a fic about Alec, whom I love. Aww. It doesn`t really have much of a plot. I don`t know, I might turn it into a fic an expand on the situations mentioned in here if I get positive feedback for it.

It`s set a year after 'Designate This'.   
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A lone man sat on the rickety park bench, a picturesque view of post-Pulse Seattle. To the average passer-by he looked tired, worn down, but no more so than any other man that wandered the streets.

I saw him for what he really was.

Silently, I slipped onto the bench beside him. His breath came out in tiny puffs of mist but it didn`t seem to bother him any, curled into the leather jacket that halfway camouflaged the stark black barcode on the nape of his neck.

"Hello," I whispered quietly, watching as my own breath exhaled in a cloud. Almost as an afterthought, I added: "494."

With a start, he looked up, caught off guard. I had disturbed his thoughts - he never did like that. Out of habit, 494`s hand snaked up and rubbed over his neck. "Who are you?"

I shrugged lightly and sat back against the bench, tearing my gaze from his hazel-green eyes to look across the desolate, frostbitten landscape. "I`m everybody."

His mind was turning; I could tell. Trying to place with me a time, a designation. Even though he was engineered to recall, I didn`t think it would help him in that instant. I had underestimated him.

"X6-314, damn!" He scooted closer, peering at wind-chapped face. "Yeah, 314. Shit." The corner of my mouth quirked up as I turned to him, taking in his surprised expression.

"The one and the only."

"The guards said you were dead," 494 mumbled, reaching out to grasp my chin. Taking a rare liberty, he rotated my face in disbelief. "God, it`s like - what`s that guy? - Lazarus." Shaking his head, he released my chin. I sighed and unconsciously rubbed the still-tender skin beneath my left breast.

"What can I say, 494? You can`t get rid of me that easily."

"Alec," he said, after a brief paused. I raised an eyebrow, flicked a strand of brown hair out of my eyes.

"Alec?"

"Smart aleck."

I laughed softly, drinking in his face. He still was as beautiful as I remembered but now shaped by life outside of the protected walls of Manticore. Shaped into a man. "It fits you. Alec. I like it." I couldn`t help but wonder who gave it to him. "Lock. I`m Lock."

Now it was his turn to raise an eyebrow, his arrogant and blond, and ask, "Lock? You found your life`s calling as a locksmith? I`m disappointed - "

I flashed my teeth for a moment, shook my head. "No, nothing that mundane. Hemlock - my poisons. Are you losing your touch already, Alec? Too much time in the 'real world' making you soft?"

A quiet sigh escaped from him. "Don`t kid about that, three. I don`t know, I don`t know..." He rolled his shoulders, a smooth ripple of muscle beneath his jacket. No, he certainly hadn`t gone soft in the year since Manticore had self-destructed. If anything, he looked more alive.

Quietly, my voice floated between us. "Do you feel alive?"

Unhesitatingly, he answered, "Yes."

"Then you know, Alec." I touched my fingers briefly to the back of his knuckles. "You know."

A rueful laugh met my ears. "You did always know what to say."

"It ain`t no Common Verbal Usage," I quipped, glad to hear some of the tension drain out of his voice on a chuckle. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him as he looked over the bleak scenery. He had come a long way from the young man who began training me in the ways of warfare on a whim from Lydecker. One-on-one training: male to female, experience to youth. I think that he had intended for us to be the first cross X-series breeding partners; to see how my canine would react to his feline.

I still wonder how that would have been between us.

Before I had a chance to discover, he had been moved to Psyobs because of the rogue X5 who had been his twin. I still hate 493 for taking that chance away from me. Away from us.

Instead of completing my training with Alec, I had been moved to normal group training and was eventually partnered with another X5. By the time my former teacher was released and pronounced sane from Psyobs, I was already out on my first off-base missions.

And getting shot by terrorist spies.

"Lock?" Alec`s voice broke into my thoughts, dragging me back to reality. I blinked, shook my head, and straightened my shoulders.

"Sorry, just wandered off there for a moment." I cast him a reassuring smile, one that covered up what I had been feeling inside. It seemed almost fitting considering I occasionally made my living from acting on a small, dark stage.

He smiled in return, the same quirky lifting of lips that had grown on me so many years ago. With a sigh, I hoisted myself up and turned toward him. "You wanna take a walk for a while?"

With a shrug, Alec stood and shoved his cold-chaffed hands into his pockets.

"Sure, you lead the way."   
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A/N: All thoughts and opinions welcome. (: Please review and such...after all, an author can only improve if she knows what she`s doing wrong... 


	2. Sceneback 1 // Degrees of Divergence

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Alec. *sigh* If I did, he`d never leave the house...he`d be too busy helping me "make up the bed." :D   
  
A/N: Since I`ve decided to continue this story and expand on it (although I`m not assuring frequent/large updates), I guess I should explain my format. Every few chapters or so, there will be a sceneback. These are equivalent to flashbacks but since they`re complete and separate chapters from the regular, "current" scenes, I`ve dubbed them scenebacks. The following is "Sceneback 1: Degrees of Divergence"  
  
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Chapter 2: Sceneback 1 // Degrees of Divergence  
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"Defenses up!" His voice was a warning. A moment later, his fist grazed my jaw, knocking me back to reality. "Focus, three," snapped the boy, moving to stand directly in front of me.  
  
Drawing a slow breath, I looked into his eyes for a brief moment before blinking away and looked around the room, away from the querying gaze.  
  
The room was stark white, plain concrete floors and walls. The single entrance and exit - a door behind me - was gray metal and the only color in the place besides the blood stains that they never could seem to remove...or probably didn`t want to remove. Even though we couldn`t see them, I knew there were tiny cameras tucked in corner, mechanically following our every move. We were effectively alone but there were people watching - there were always people watching.  
  
"I - I...sorry, 494." With a quick shake through my body and a shrug, I brought my hands up to first defensive position - both hands balled, raised to cheekbone level. Sighing, my trainer moved back to his former station and prepared to attack.  
  
It always seemed like we were doing endless arrays of sparring, hour upon hour of hands on combat. I figured that it might have had a purpose, albeit one that I never managed to comprehend. Thinking back on it, though, I never did manage to comprehend most anything that Lydecker did. He had his own reasons, his own personal agenda, and we were only there to fulfill whatever desires he set forth.  
  
His first blow narrowly missed clipping the exposed side of my head, more of a signal than a missed shot. 494 rarely missed a shot. I quickly deflected his next blow with my right hand, managed to angle in a hard jab with my left. Counter, counter, and he had me forced back against the wall.  
  
The feline DNA that he was given as an X5 seemed to stand out most noticeably during matches like this, when he was all cat-like litheness and potentially deadly grace. He was beautiful anytime...but it struck full force when all of his bred instincts had their use, could come freely, unhidden to the surface.   
  
I watched him through half-lidded eyes, my concentration beginning to return slowly, calculating his next move. After all, he taught me - I knew everything that he did. 494 backed off and circled, invited me to meet him with something akin to laughter buried in his intense hazel eyes.  
  
I pushed off the wall at a hard angle and jammed my elbow into his gut, which seemed to do nothing more than irritate him. After an endless array of attacks and counters, I managed to land a hard chop against the momentary weak spot of his neck. Instantaneously he grabbed my wrist, spun me around so that my back jammed hard against his chest.  
  
"The sooner you start paying full attention, the sooner we can get out of this hell-hole room," he growled close to my ear. Our breath came in shallow gasps that forced the length of my body against his; I nodded, tried to jerk my mind away from how his body felt when it was so close and about how to evade loss instead.  
  
I shifted, swept his feet out from under him with a single movement of my leg. He gave a startled cry as his fell backward, pulling me back in the fall. I landed hard, knocking the wind out of him, and rolled off an instant later, knowing I was in dangerous territory.  
  
"Spar, 314," I announced as I placed my foot on his heaving chest in the proclamation of victory. Glaring at me through slatted eyes, he merely nodding and pushed my leg away. I dared enough to flash a brief grin that probably seemed more like a grimace before extending my hand to help him back to his feet, which he declined and, in a gesture so like him, rose on his own.  
  
"You`re getting better, X6-314." We both turned, saw the familiar man who stepped into the room and snapped to immediate attention.   
  
"Colonel Lydecker, sir!" Nodding, he walked closer toward us.  
  
Lydecker wasn`t an extremely tall man or even passably threatening of himself...it was the power, the knowledge of life and death that he hung above all of our heads like an awaiting noose. Beside me, I could feel 494 tense as the Colonel looked him over - Lydecker always seemed to watch 494 more closely than any of the others, like he was waiting for him to gather up and jump the fences like the Gillette group back in '09.  
  
"At ease, soldiers." I relaxed slightly and clasped my hands behind my back as I watched him circle us, more of a predator than either of us could ever become. Even though he knew that we could snap his neck like a toothpick, he was never afraid. Always prodding us, watching us, setting us on edge. "I assume your training is going according to plan, then?" Nods. "Good, good." Just as briskly as he walked in, he turned and called a guard into the room. "Escort X5-494 back to the 2 sector."  
  
I watched him go, saw the quick turn of his head as he exited the door. Our eyes met for a brief moment, never-ending hazel to green, before he was out of sight and heading back to his designated area, leaving me alone with a man that I feared but would never respect.  
  
"Sir?" I queried as the door shut, sealing us in together. He rarely took personal interest in me; I thought it best to stay as far beneath his radars as possible. After all, I wasn`t an X5. They were his pets, his special interests, his life. 'X6' was almost like a taint.  
  
I wondered faintly why he would risk contaminating someone that interested him so much as X5-494 with...me.  
"314," he began, standing tall and strong and directly in front of me, "You have shown great improvement throughout your time training with 494."  
  
He paused, as if waiting for a reply, and I slowly nodded.  
  
"However, at this point in time, he will no longer be...able to precept. No, be quiet," Lydecker said immediately, seeing the surprised jerk in my posture. I stilled. "I thought to notify you before you are placed back in regular group training.   
  
Considering the amount of time you and 494 spent together and our original plans concerning your futures, and given light of our current knowledge, we believe that it would be most beneficial all around to return you back to your X6 comrades."  
  
At that time, I didn`t have the faintest idea of what he was referring to. I only nodded as a dutiful soldier would and knotted by fingers behind the shield of my back, outletting my anxiety there rather than breaking my superior`s jaw.  
  
"Understood?"  
  
"Yes, sir!"  
  
"Dismissed."  
  
With that, he gestured and a guard standing on the opposite side opened the door. A heavy feeling dragging at my entire body, I marched back to the barracks and into the cold gray and steel of my bunk.  
  
In my imagination, I thought that I could faintly hear screams echoing off of the walls from far away. 


End file.
